Lucifer: Love Handles – Moral Dilemma (Review)

The women in Lucifer’s life are all out of sorts in this episode. “Love Handles” does not follow any presumed path as Chloe and Morningstar try to stop a killer who practices a “Saw” type of cause and effect experiment.

This episode does follow on from the final moments of last week’s segment where Andy Kleinburg died after spilling some of that special package on himself. The dead man’s body turns up as evidence this week that helps Ella move the current investigation along.

Professor Carlisle is killing people to prove a point. He chose to save his dissertation paperwork rather then a student. The innocent student died and as a result the academic was vilified and fired from the university where he taught.

While the police rush to save the latest potential victims of Carlisle, Charlotte, aka Lucifer’s mum, tries to find someone to deliver her “devastating” news. She tries Linda, who flatly refuses and then asks Mazikeen.

Initially the demon agrees but on the night, she backs out. Lucifer learns the truth anyway. He finds out that his father put Chloe in his path. Amenadiel arranged for the girl to be born by blessing her mother.

Clearly Charlotte hopes that Lucifer’s rage at this father’s “betrayal” will work in her favor. When Morningstar confronts Chloe she is, like the college girl they saved earlier, bleeding from the nose and it will not stop.

The designer poisons, introduced last week, are still a plot point in this episode and now that Chloe’s life is threatened, Lucifer will, no doubt, re-think his annoyance that what he and the detective have is “not real.”

Lucifer is rapidly moving toward their mid-winter finale. The next episode is slated to air February 6 and the series will then not return until 1 May. Clearly the next installment, titled “A Good Day to Die,” is meant to be even more of a cliffhanger than Monday’s episode.

Now that Lucifer now knows about Amenadiel’s “interference” and Charlotte’s knowledge, it seems pretty certain that he will be confronting his brother in the next episode. This, on top of the professor killing himself in this episode, will no doubt exacerbate relations with the angel and God’s “wife.” It will also make Chloe’s fate uncertain.

This was an odd episode. Chloe acts strangely out of character throughout the story line. So much so that Lucifer feels that someone is controlling her movements. It made for some amusing moments as Lucifer reacts uncomfortably when Decker comes over all coquettish.

The entire Chloe falling in love with Lucifer feels rushed at this point. In a short three episode story arc, we learn that Morningstar’s father orchestrated Decker’s birth and appears to have orchestrated their meeting and Lucifer’s attraction to the miracle girl.

Lucifer “Love Handles” really was all about more than one moral dilemma. The women in Morningstar’s life all have qualms about getting involved with the issue at hand. As do the people that Carlisle picks in his little experiment.